Google Chromecast infringed upon three patents of Touchstream Technologies, Inc. and may pay $338.7 million in damages, a Western District of Texas jury selected Friday, as reported by Law360.
The verdict [PDF] exhibits the jury agreeing with Touchstream’s allegations that Google violated patents 8,356,251, 8,782,528, and 8,904,289 (Touchstream Technologies Inc. v. Google LLC, case quantity 6:21-cv-00569 within the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas).
The ruling comes after Touchstream filed a grievance in June 2021 claiming that it met with Google in December 2011 and was instructed that the tech big wasn’t excited by partnering with it in February 2012. Google then launched Chromecast in 2013. The grievance factors to the primary Chromecast and the second and third generations, Chromecast Ultra and Chromecast with Google TV, in addition to different Chromecast-integrated merchandise, as infringements of Touchstream patents.
The grievance claims that Touchstream founder David Strober in “as early as mid-2010” noticed demand for the power to transfer movies usually considered on small screens, like a smartphone show, to a bigger display screen, like a TV or monitor. Strober finally sought to use a tool, like a smartphone, “to trigger a video to play on a second display screen, even when that video resided elsewhere (like the general public Internet),” the grievance says, including that Stober had a “working prototype” by the tip of 2010 and his first patent software filed by April 2011.
All three of the Touchstream patents in query are titled “Play management of content material on a show machine” and element “a system for presenting and controlling content material on a show machine” that makes use of “a community, a server system coupled to the community and comprising a number of servers, a show machine coupled to the community and having a show, and a private computing machine operable to transmit a primary message in accordance to a specified format over the community to the server system.”
The patents’ abstracts proceed: “The server system shops an affiliation between the non-public computing machine and the show machine. The first message identifies user-selected content material and a media participant to play the content material. The server system is operable, in response to receiving the primary message from the non-public computing machine, to present to the show machine a second message figuring out the user-selected content material and the media participant to play the content material. In response to receiving the second message, the show machine is operable to get hold of a primary media participant wanted to play the content material, to load the media participant and to current the content material on the show.”
Google denied infringing on Touchstream’s patents and has claimed the patents are invalid, based mostly on the precept of obviousness, which argues that innovations which might be obvious to most people due to earlier innovations cannot be patented.
In courtroom filings, Google states that the patents in query are “hardly foundational and don’t cowl each technique of choosing content material on a private machine and watching it on one other display screen,” as Law360 famous.
Google additionally reportedly argued that Chromecast differs from the applied sciences in Touchstream’s patents as a result of Chromecast makes use of a server system and show machine, whereas Touchstream’s patents element separate entities for the server system and show.
Google has additionally argued that Touchstream is just a licensing entity with no merchandise or prospects and due to this fact has requested the courtroom not to ban gross sales of Chromecast. Touchstream’s “solely enterprise is to try to monetize patents. If Touchstream receives damages, it should have fulfilled its solely enterprise objective,” Google mentioned, as quoted by Law360.
Google declined to remark additional on the assertion on what the laws means for Chromecast merchandise to Ars Technica.
Google to enchantment
In an announcement to Ars, Google spokesperson José Castañeda mentioned:
We strongly disagree with the decision and can enchantment. We have at all times developed know-how independently and competed on the deserves of our concepts, and can proceed to defend ourselves towards these meritless claims.
Google is difficult the validity of the three Touchstream patents on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, with rulings anticipated by October, Law360 famous.
Ars reached out to legal professionals for Touchstream at Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP concerning the case and Google’s claims that Touchstream’s solely curiosity is in patents. Ryan Dykal, an IP companion engaged on the case, mentioned:
Touchstream filed for patent safety and spent a 12 months growing its know-how earlier than assembly with Google beneath the guise of an NDA. The trial file exhibits that regardless of the protections from the NDA and the patent filings, inside weeks of their assembly Google started secretly constructing [its] infringing casting know-how. After Google flooded the market with 140 million infringing devices–often offered at or beneath value—Touchstream continued constructing its enterprise till it was compelled to implement its rights beginning in 2017. The jury was offered with the entire details and concluded that Touchstream’s patents are legitimate and Google infringed.
Google declined to touch upon Touchstream’s assertion.
Touchstream additionally has patent infringement lawsuits towards Altice, Charter, and Comcast, Law360 famous. Touchstream claims that the businesses’ apps and/or set-top field applied sciences violate related patents, together with the aforementioned 8,356,251 patent that Touchstream accused Google of infringing.